Briefly Noted

Friday, 18 November, 2005

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IWPR

Institute for War & Peace Reporting

In September 2003, Nikolic, who originally faced 80 counts of crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva conventions and violations of the laws or customs of war, agreed to plead guilty to a reduced charge sheet in return for prosecutors joining with defence counsel to recommend a 15 year prison sentence.

But in 2003 the trial chamber sidelined these recommendations and handed down a sentence of 23 years, citing the gravity of Nikolic’s crimes and a number of aggravating factors. “One of the most chilling aspects of these acts was the enjoyment he derived from his criminal conduct,” presiding Judge Schomburg said at the sentencing hearing.

Were it not for mitigating factors such as Nikolic’s expressed shame and his cooperation with tribunal prosecutors, Judge Schomburg added, there would have been no other option but to send him to prison for the rest of his life.

At a hearing on February 4, appeals judges dismissed the vast majority of Nikolic’s grounds of appeal, including his arguments that the trial chamber gave insufficient weight to his remorse and to the recommendations of the parties as to the length of his sentence.

But appeals judges said the trial chamber did err in making a clear decision to extend Nikolic’s sentence to make up for the fact that he would likely receive early release after serving two thirds of the time they handed down. The appeals chamber ruled that such early release, which is not guaranteed, should not have been given so much weight. Appeals judges duly reduced Nikolic’s sentence to 20 years.

Having already spent almost five years in custody in The Hague, Nikolic will now be transferred elsewhere to sit out the remaining fifteen.

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The tribunal’s chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte has requested that the war crimes cases of Bosnian Serb general Dragomir Milosevic and former Bosnian Serb paramilitaries Milan and Sredoje Lukic to local courts in Bosnia.

The move comes as part of the tribunal’s completion strategy, which sees the court focusing on higher-level cases in order to meet its goal of completing all trial proceedings by the end of 2008 and rounding up its work two years later.

Former Sarajevo Romanija Corps commander Milosevic surrendered to the tribunal in December 2004. He is accused of orchestrating the final 15 months of the siege of Sarajevo, during which time prosecutors allege that he conducted a “coordinated and protracted campaign” of shelling and sniping, which left thousands of civilians dead or injured.

After he took over as commander, the corps began to use a devastating weapon not seen before in Bosnia – fragmentation bombs originally designed to be dropped from aircraft. These were launched over the city without any form of guidance system and caused huge damage.

Milosevic’s predecessor as head of the Sarajevo Romanija Corps, General Stanislav Galic, was sentenced to 20 years in prison by the tribunal in December 2003.

Milan and Sredoje Lukic – both of whom are still at large – are wanted for crimes in the municipality of Visegrad in south eastern Bosnia, near the border with Serbia.

Sredoje is alleged to have been a member of a notorious Bosnian Serb paramilitary force known as the “White Eagles” or the “Avengers”, which was led by his cousin Milan.

On one occasion in 1992, prosecutors allege that the two men killed some 70 Bosnian Muslims by driving them into a house in Nova Mahala, setting fire to the building and then gunning down anyone who tried to escape through the windows.

They are alleged to have employed a similar method just a fortnight later, this time barricading some 70 Muslims into a house in Bikavac and throwing explosives into the building. Only one person survived.

The two are also accused of a series of other murders, beatings of prisoners and the general charge of “persecution” of non-Serbs.

A third White Eagles member, Mitar Vasiljevic, was sentenced by the tribunal’s appeals chamber in February 2004 to 15 years in prison for his role in the murders of seven Bosnian Muslims. The same incident is listed in the indictment against Milan Lukic.

If Del Ponte’s request is granted, the three cases will be heard in Sarajevo’s newly established war crimes court.

***

The trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic was cancelled this week due to the accused’s poor health.

Tribunal officials confirmed that Milosevic was suffering from a cold rather than any problems related to his high blood pressure.

While lengthy breaks caused by Milosevic’s condition were common during the prosecution phase of his trial, this is the first time that the former Yugoslav president has fallen ill since the start of his defence case last October.

This summer judges ruled that Milosevic was too sick to conduct his own defence without any help, and assigned former amicus curiae Steven Kay to act as his defence counsel with responsibility for preparing witnesses and conducting the examination in chief.

After Milosevic refused to cooperate, and when defence witnesses started boycotting the trial on a massive scale, the appeals chamber last November returned the right to prepare and question witnesses to the defendant - but kept Kay as assigned lawyer on the case.

Kay has been trying to withdraw from the trial ever since, but his efforts have been systematically blocked by judges and the registrar. The last word in this issue now lies with tribunal president, Judge Theodor Meron, who has not yet answered Kay's written request that he be granted the right to leave.

The Milosevic case is scheduled to continue on February 8.